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en-usTechdirt. Stories about "nra"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Fri, 10 May 2013 04:11:46 PDTEA Says It's Going To Keep Using Manufacturers' Guns In Its Games -- It's Just Done Asking PermissionTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130507/21473422998/ea-says-its-going-to-keep-using-manufacturers-guns-its-games-its-just-done-asking-permission.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130507/21473422998/ea-says-its-going-to-keep-using-manufacturers-guns-its-games-its-just-done-asking-permission.shtml
Given the current climate surrounding guns, violent video games and all points where the two intersect, it's not surprising that a large developer like EA would attempt to distance itself from gun manufacturers.

[A]t least one game maker, the second largest by revenue in the United States, is publicly distancing itself from the gun industry, even as it finds ways to keep the branded guns in the games. Electronic Arts says it is severing its licensing ties to gun manufacturers - and simultaneously asserting that it has the right, and the intention, to continue to feature branded guns without a license.

A rep for EA says this decision has nothing to do with the NRA's immediate willingness to lay the blame for the Newtown shooting at the feet of violent video games. But that's a rather tough sell, especially considering the hard line EA is pursuing.

Gun licensing for games has never been particularly lucrative for gun manufacturers, at least not in terms of licensing fees. Most agreements were felt to be mutually beneficial: game developers were able to craft authentic weapons and gun manufacturers received free advertising and the best kind of product placement -- right in the virtual hands of potential customers.

Now, it seems the relationship has become mutually toxic.

"It gives publicity to the particular brand of gun being used in the video game," said Brad J. Bushman, a professor at Ohio State University who has studied video game violence. "On the other hand, it's linking that gun with violent and aggressive behavior."

Bushman's studies on video games and violent media have frequently resulted in dubious conclusions (to put it kindly), but if anyone's going to take him seriously, it's the NRA and gun manufacturers. What once looked like an ideal match now puts gun manufacturers' implicit endorsement of violent video games in a very unfavorable light.

EA may be able to help them out with this. It's not going to give up using real world weapons in its games -- it's just going to stop asking permission.

"We're telling a story and we have a point of view," EA's President of Labels Frank Gibeau, who leads product development of EA's biggest franchises, said in an interview. "A book doesn't pay for saying the word 'Colt,' for example."

Put another way, EA is asserting a constitutional free speech right to use trademarks without permission in its ever-more-realistic games.

EA is going to rely on fair use and it should have a fairly strong case. More promising is the fact that gun makers haven't been very litigious in the past. According to Reuters, a gun manufacturer has yet to sue a game developer over lack of proper licensing. However, the recently introduced friction between these two industries makes EA's new "license-free" stance a bit more combative that it would be otherwise.

This approach almost appears to be EA throwing down the gauntlet and daring embattled gun manufacturers to wander back out into the public eye. There's no way gunmakers will look any better pursuing licensing fees or suing for breach of contract, and EA knows this. Once again, I'm not buying EA's "no harm, no foul" statement in reference to the NRA's recent attempt to toss video games under the bus.

EA may have the upper hand at the moment, but Reuters mentions a pending lawsuit that could spell trouble in the future.

Aircraft maker Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc, has argued that Electronic Arts' depiction of its helicopters in "Battlefield" was beyond fair use and amounted to a trademark infringement. EA preemptively went to court, suing Bell Helicopter to settle the issue.

Should Bell prevail, EA may find gun makers willing to test the legal waters and attempt to pry EA's unlicensed guns from its cold, injunctioned fingers.

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]]>somehow-I-think-the-NFL-won't-push-over-as-easily...https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130507/21473422998Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:17:00 PSTNRA: Games To Blame For Violence! Also, Here's A Shooting Game For 4-Year-Olds!Timothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130116/08485121701/nra-games-to-blame-violence-also-heres-shooting-game-4-year-olds.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130116/08485121701/nra-games-to-blame-violence-also-heres-shooting-game-4-year-olds.shtmlnot be allowed to ask questions about gun safety in "well-child" visits is just stubborn silliness. That kind of paranoia should be reserved for the lunatic fringe, not the most powerful firearms lobbying group in the country. Likewise, the insane idea that the 2nd amendment should be protected by treading upon the 1st and 4th amendments isn't just hypocritical, it's multiplicatively hypocritical.

There have been a lot of people blaming violent video games for gun violence in America, especially in the wake of the tragic Newtown, Connecticut shootings. Chief among them, of course, was the National Rifle Association. In his comments after the shootings, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre blamed several video games that featured guns, like Bulletstorm and Splatterhouse, but left off titles like NRA: Varmint Hunter and NRA: Gun Club. He also failed to mention the new NRA branded iOS game which must have been in development at the time, NRA: Practice Range. The new game is recommended for ages four and up, probably because they don't want kids younger than four to see how much fun super-cool guns can be.

Now, in the interest of being fair here, there's an obvious difference in content between games like Bulletstorm and Practice Range or Varmint Hunter. The NRA isn't putting out games in which human being are shot. But that's a rather weak distinction to draw when you've spoken out so radioactively against violence in gaming. The simple glorification of guns for 4 years olds is probably not the best move PR-wise in the current atmosphere, but even having an NRA sponsored game for shooting animals raises questions. The line on shooting living things is crossed and it would be quite easy to point to harming animals as a predictive sign of criminality, violence and sociopathy. Why is the NRA providing a gaming avenue for such behavior while decrying other/more violent games for providing a gaming avenue for that same behavior?

It should be pointed out that, true to their words, the NRA is littering these games with gun safety tips, but from the standpoint of public relations that doesn't really soften how dumb a move this is. To be clear, I don't think the stupidity is in releasing these games. I'm fine with them. The problem is when you seek to deflect criticism for gun violence by pointing to games, all while you're also releasing shooting games, you lose a great deal of credibility. But when you put forth a game that gives you "one minute to fire off as many rounds as possible" and aims it, by their own words, at children as young as four years old, you just look like jackasses.

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]]>pr-is-a-skillhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130116/08485121701Fri, 28 Dec 2012 15:28:00 PSTMTP's David Gregory Does Journalism, Some Citizens Want His ArrestTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121228/04121521505/mtps-david-gregory-does-journalism-some-citizens-want-his-arrest.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121228/04121521505/mtps-david-gregory-does-journalism-some-citizens-want-his-arrest.shtmlvideogames for what happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. We even saw how social media and media-media combined to rush to judgement on the wrong suspect and the wrong related Facebook "likes". Now, one new ripple is that David Gregory is under investigation.

David Gregory is not above the law; he is a journalist, and must be held accountable to the same law as every other person.

DC High Capacity Ammunition Magazines - D.C. Official Code 7-2506.01 (b) No person in the District shall possess, sell, or transfer any large capacity ammunition feeding device regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm. For the purposes of this subsection, the term large capacity ammunition feeding device means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

We The People demand that he be formally charged for violation of this law on "Meet The Press."

I admit, it's difficult to know where to begin. Let's start with MTP's use of the magazines as props. It turns out that the show's producers might make the dean's list for dumb this year. They did indeed get permission to use the props on the show, but they only got permission from the ATF, not local law enforcement, where those magazines are illegal. Stupid, but that kind of thing happens in show business, I suppose.

Now, dealing with the petition itself. It's just pickles that someone from Boise, Idaho is so whole-heartedly concerned with Metro D.C. gun laws that they need to start a petition to get the White House involved. Either that, or people are having more of those over-the-top reactions to a tragedy I mentioned earlier. Not to mention, as the linked article notes, attempting to get the Obama administration involved in any of this is simply futile.

The drive to lock Gregory up still needs about 15,000 signers, but in the mean time, let's clear this up. Although the White House could certainly apply political pressure to the D.C. government, it has no direct purview over the Metropolitan Police Department's investigations. To boot, Gregory held up the magazine as an example of the kind of ammunition used in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and in the wake of that carnage, President Obama has moved toward making gun control a key issue in his second term. So, yeah, demanding that the White House clap David Gregory in irons is kind of dumb. Let's instead focus on the real villains, like CNN blabber Piers Morgan. A petition calling for his deportation back to the United Kingdom has garnered more than 82,000 signatures.

Now there's a petition I can get behind.

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]]>welcome-to-the-stupid-showhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121228/04121521505Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:40:00 PSTNRA's Plan: If We Blame Video Games & Movies For Sandy Hook Massacre, Perhaps People Will Stop Blaming GunsMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121219/09124821437/nras-plan-if-we-blame-video-games-movies-sandy-hook-massacre-perhaps-people-will-stop-blaming-guns.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121219/09124821437/nras-plan-if-we-blame-video-games-movies-sandy-hook-massacre-perhaps-people-will-stop-blaming-guns.shtmlshutting down its Facebook feed (which was getting bombarded) and staying silent on Twitter. However, the organization started to speak up yesterday, putting out a message about how it, too, was horrified by the tragedy, and announcing an important press conference for Friday. According to Fox News, the point of the conference is to "push back" and apparently that means blaming videos games and movies:

Sources close to the issue had earlier alerted Fox News that the National Rifle Association -- which has remained silent since Newtown, chiefly to allow for a proper period for mourning -- would soon start to "push back" against the gun-control lobby.

"If we're going to have a conversation, then let's have a comprehensive conversation," said one industry source. "If we're going to talk about the Second Amendment, then let's also talk about the First Amendment, and Hollywood, and the video games that teach young kids how to shoot heads.

Of course, as we've been noting the past few days, this kind of thing may actually go over well with grandstanding politicians who have used the tragedy to push this line of action, despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that such things have had any impact at all.

This is basically the NRA's "hey, look over there!" strategy.

And, whatever you think of the gun control issue, I can't see that working out well for the NRA in the long run. It might get the attention of a few grandstanding politicians, but these days, a very large percentage of the population plays video games. It's not an issue that's confined to a small group of teenaged boys any more. And pissing off the large and growing group of gamers with bogus claims about how they're being brainwashed to murder people isn't going to win many fans.